Drive

by Stephanie Fournet

  She gulped. Was she okay? No, not really. She needed to talk to him, and not through a bathroom door. She needed him to know how she felt, and she needed to show him what he meant to her.

  “Yes?” Two bathrobes wrapped in dry cleaner bags hung on the back of the door. Rainey grabbed the smaller one and ripped open the plastic.

  “Yes? You don’t sound so sure about that. Will you be okay while I go out? I won’t be gone long.”

  “No, I-I mean, yes, I’d be fine but—” She dropped her towel and threw the robe around her shoulders. “Don’t leave just yet.”

  He was silent while she yanked the tie closed and knotted it with a bow.

  “What’s wrong?” Jacques’s voice had softened with concern.

  The sound made her sigh. Rainey gave herself a quick once over in the mirror. Her face was flushed from the bath. Her hair, wrested in a haphazard bun, needed to be combed out, but that would have to wait. Rainey knew herself. She knew that she needed to seize this moment of courage before it slipped away, and if she let Jacques leave their room, she might lose her nerve while he went in search of dinner.

  Rainey gripped the antique crystal doorknob, took one steadying breath, and opened the door. Jacques stood on the other side wearing a worried frown.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Nothing… really…” She started, stopped, and then felt the full force of her nerves.

  His eyes narrowed, and then they dropped to the robe. He blinked twice and grinned. “That’s a good look for you.”

  His teasing smile swept away some of her nerves, but Rainey still didn’t know how to find the right words. She took a step toward him and held his gaze.

  “Thank you.”

  The temptation to look away was overwhelming. Heat rushed to her cheeks, but she didn’t break her stare. His eyes, the warm, welcoming brown she’d grown to love, were still smiling, and she watched as the smile gave way to an intense focus.

  “What is it?” he whispered, his brows drawing together.

  Her heart racing, Rainey raised both hands, took another step, and placed them on his chest. Without hesitation, Jacques’s arms closed around her, and his frowning brow lifted in question.

  “Thank you,” she said again.

  “You’re shaking. Are you still cold?”

  Rainey ran her hands up to his shoulders and shook her head. “No, just nervous,” she admitted.

  Jacques blinked in surprise. “Why are you nervous?”

  She reached up and gently grasped the collar of his T-shirt in both hands. She tugged, and Jacques lowered his head without protest. Rainey stretched up until her lips nearly touched his.

  “Because…” she whispered, and then she kissed him. Jacques inhaled a slow, deep breath that lifted his chest and nearly took Rainey off her feet. Or maybe it was the kiss. But he held her firmly against him and let her claim his mouth. She kissed him hard, loving the way his lips yielded, soft yet firm, against hers. Before she could advance, though, Jacques nodded.

  “Yeah,” he whispered against her mouth. “I can see why that’d make you nervous.” And then he was kissing her smile because, of course, his words made her smile. She let her tongue sweep over the seam of his lips, and he answered in kind. The tip of her tongue touched his, and she drew it into her mouth, inviting him to fill her. His sharp inhale turned into a moan as he breathed out. The sound gave her courage, and she let one hand travel into his hair.

  When they’d been in his car during the storm, she’d held onto his hair for all she was worth, and now it felt like a dear friend. He’d changed into dry clothes, but the back of his hair was still just a little damp, and somehow, Rainey found this immeasurably sweet.

  He’d gotten soaked trying to help her.

  Everything he’d done in the last four days — ever since he’d arrived at her house the night she learned about Ray — he’d done to help her. Rainey struggled to order her thoughts, but tangled in his kiss, that was easier said than done.

  Yet she knew kissing him wasn’t enough. It wasn’t a matter of owing him a debt, though Rainey felt sure she’d be indebted to him for the rest of her life. No one outside of Holi and her mother had ever been so devoted to her.

  No, she could never repay him for that, but she needed to make it clear how she felt, and her kiss would only tell him so much. She pulled back and looked up into his half-lidded eyes.

  “I’m not very good at this,” she confessed.

  She watched Jacques swallow as his eyes grew alert. He shook his head. “I disagree.”

  Rainey bit down on her laugh. “That’s not what I mean,” she whispered. Then she licked her lips, hoping the next words to leave her mouth would be enough. “I’ve been a tremendous fool.”

  Jacques regarded her with skepticism, leaned in, and took her bottom lip between both of his. The maddening sensation of this gentle touch cascaded down her body like a waterfall. He released her flesh slowly but didn’t retreat when he spoke.

  “Why do you think that?” he murmured, his deep voice rumbling through her.

  It felt as if each of her cells were trained to respond to his voice and his voice alone, and at the sound they all stood at attention. Rainey swallowed, looking up at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Because I pushed you away.”

  Surprised satisfaction lit his eyes. This time, he took her bottom lip between his teeth, and Rainey quivered from head to toe. “And this is something you regret?” he purred after releasing her.

  She brought her gaze to his. Her hands moved from the back of his neck to the sides of his beautiful face. She let her thumbs run over the scrubby terrain of his stubble and let her eyes trace over his whole face. His dark brows that flared with such expression. His dear brown eyes. The strength and perfection of his nose. His tempting, hypnotizing lips. The masculine lines of his chin and jaw.

  It was a face Rainey wanted to see every day for the rest of her life.

  She didn’t fool herself. No chance of that existed. None at all. They might stay together for a few weeks or even a few months, but eventually Jacques’s music would run away with him, and sooner or later, it would outrun her altogether.

  But she was done making her father’s mistakes. She’d be grateful for whatever time they had together. Starting right now.

  “Yes,” she said, pressing her lips to his with tenderness. “Yes, it’s something I truly regret.”

  Jacques’s hand came up to her face and brushed away a tendril that had strayed from her bun. He smiled down at her as though he possessed the most coveted secret.

  “You know, that’s easily fixed,” he said, his eyes twinkling with conspiracy.

  “Oh?” she asked, playing along.

  He nodded sagely.

  She tilted her head and gazed up at him, anticipation and desire streaming into her veins like a drug. “And how so?” she asked.

  He pursed his lips as though puzzling out the answer. The playful, coy expression on such a masculine mouth made her tingle all over. “Well, what’s the opposite of pushing me away?”

  The room fell completely silent as though even the air awaited her answer. Without a word — and with sudden force — Rainey pulled Jacques down to her mouth. When their lips met, she did not merely kiss him. She claimed him. She devoured him. Her kiss, so urgent, bordered on violence.

  Rainey angled her body and stepped back until her legs hit the mattress, and with an unmistakable pull — not a push in sight — she fell backward, taking Jacques with her.

  His weight on top of her felt like an answered prayer. His hard lines pressed into her soft curves with a cosmic sense of rightness. She felt, too, the undeniable evidence of his desire for her there against her thigh, yet she could scarcely believe it. Before she could think better of the question, Rainey’s shaking voice set it free.

  “Wh-why… why do you like me?”

  Above her Jacques’s body went rigid. Then he pushed up onto his elbows and frowned down at her. “
You’ve got to be joking.”

  But she wasn’t joking. She shouldn’t have questioned it. She should have just accepted his affections as evidence of a benevolent universe, but in truth, his feelings for her, his passion for her humbled Rainey beyond anything she’d ever known.

  “Oh, my God,” he murmured, his frown deepening. “You’re not joking.”

  Rainey shook her head. “Forget I asked,” she said. Her hands were at his waist, and she slipped them beneath his shirt and met his taut, warm skin, ready to pick up where they’d left off.

  “Oh, no,” Jacques said, reaching down and grabbing both of her wrists before hauling her arms up near her head. His stern expression told Rainey she’d struck a nerve. “I won’t be able to forget about it.”

  Rainey shut her eyes at her own stupidity. “Please forget about it. It’s been a long time since I did this.”

  Silence.

  And then his whisper tickled her nose. “Open your eyes.”

  She opened one.

  Jacques’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly, but he did a good job of keeping it in check. “Did what?”

  Rainey rolled the one open eye and made a futile attempt to turn up her hands in frustration. “This. Anything.”

  She watched him inhale slowly, and a shade of concern crossed his eyes. He lowered his mouth and gently plied a kiss to hers. “The night we first went out for dinner, you told me it’d been two years since you were last kissed…” He stopped, and Rainey could see his hesitation. “That long…? Or longer?”

  Rainey bit both her lips, regretting she’d said anything. Her heart, that most uncooperative of organs, started a chaotic thrumming.

  “Longer than two years,” he concluded aloud, but his expression never changed. He didn’t look surprised or horrified, just concerned and irrepressibly intent on keeping his gaze to hers. “Three years?”

  Rainey’s eyes stung. She swallowed hard. This was not the seduction she’d planned, but she would not allow tears to intrude into this space. But to be sure they didn’t, she shook her head instead of speaking.

  “Four?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Five?” His voice was barely a whisper. It was his gentleness that made her able to look at him, and in his eyes, she was surprised to see pain where she’d expected pity. She understood then that he felt pain for her.

  “Six,” she found herself saying. “Not since high school. Not since the accident.”

  His frown shifted and resettled on his brow. “I don’t understand. What—”

  “I was dating someone at the time,” she explained, not wanting to make him grasp at straws. “After the accident, I couldn’t leave the house. Not for anything… At first, Chase was patient, supportive, but then…”

  “Then what?” An edge sharpened his voice.

  Rainey gave him a wistful smile. “Chase was a good guy,” she said, hoping to reassure him. “He didn’t want to hurt me, but he also didn’t know how to help me. I never blamed him for breaking it off.”

  Jacques’s brow rose in an ominous arch. “He left you?”

  “We were seventeen.” She spoke evenly, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t grateful for his sweet and protective display. “What else could he have done?”

  His answer was immediate. “Come to see you every day. Helped you take it step by step. If you didn’t want to leave the house, he could have started by taking you out onto the porch,” Jacques imagined, troubleshooting as he went. “And then he could have taken you down the street. Then around the block. Until you were ready for more.”

  She could only smile at him, at the indignation in is expression. If he hadn’t had her hands pinned to the bed, she would have reached for him.

  “That’s what I would have done,” he insisted.

  Rainey believed him. If she would have been Jacques’s high school sweetheart when she’d lost John Lee, he probably would have done exactly that. Given what he’d done for her so far, it was hard to imagine anything less. But that still didn’t mean she deserved it.

  “But why?” She needed the answer. Moving forward now seemed impossible without it.

  His brow arched, and his lopsided grin made her grateful she was already flat on her back. “I think you know.”

  Rainey shook her head. “I don’t.”

  “Yeah, you do. You just need to give yourself permission to say it. So, go ahead,” Jacques said. “I’m waiting.”

  Rainey fast blinked. “Wait, what? You want me to tell you why you like me?”

  Jacques nodded, his self-satisfied smile dangerous up close.

  “I-I can’t do that. That’s ridiculous.”

  He glanced at her pinned arms and their surroundings. “Well, we’re not going anywhere until you do, so you’d better take a shot at it.”

  Rainey just stared. And then she squirmed. She could see by the look on his face he had no intentions of moving. How in the hell had she gotten herself into this?

  “Jacques, I don’t think—”

  “C’mon. You know you got this.”

  Did she? Rainey let her eyes drift down to the relative safety of his neck. He was beautiful there, too. She hoped she’d have a chance to kiss him there. Then her eyes flew to his.

  “You like my neck.”

  Above her, Jacques threw his head back and roared with laughter. Then he collapsed on her and laughed more. The feeling of his jubilant weight on top of her was unparalleled. Nothing in her life had felt so good.

  His lips found her neck, and he kissed her three times. “Yes.” He laughed again. “Yes, I love your neck.”

  The word love stroked like a feather down her spine. “And I make you laugh,” she said, this time with more confidence.

  Jacques raised himself up on his elbows again so he could look down into her eyes. His own were shining. “My God, yes. You make me laugh more than anyone I’ve ever met,” he said. “Which means with you, I feel better than I’ve ever felt.”

  She sucked in a breath. It took a moment for speech to return to her, and when it did, she felt out of practice. “Well, that’s… I mean… I’m glad to hear that.” And then she forced a swallow and held tight to her courage. “I feel the same way about you… Being with you feels better… better than anything else.”

  His eyes warmed as his smile suffused his whole face. He nodded, seeming to take in this truth. “Keep going. You’re doing well. What else do I like about you?”

  “Really? I have to keep going?”

  He gave her a grave smile. “Oh, yes. There’s a lot more.”

  Rainey gusted a sigh of frustration, but then she looked at Jacques. Really looked at him. It would be incredibly easy to enumerate a list, pages long, about what she adored about him, but that wasn’t going to help her out now. It wasn’t like she was about to become a famous musician.

  But then a thought struck her. “You like that I know you’ll be successful — as a musician, I mean.”

  Jacques pinned her with his gaze. “I like that you believe in me,” he corrected. “I don’t know if you realize how rare that’s been in my life.”

  The look in his eyes, so serious and penetrating, made her breath still.

  “Outside of Pal, nearly everyone I know has questioned my goals, my plans,” he said. “When I dropped out of UL to pursue music, my business professors told me I’d regret it. My girlfriend, Emmie, broke up with me. She said she couldn’t be with someone whose future wouldn’t be stable.”

  Rainey frowned because when he said those words, she could see the hurt, even though it must have been years old. A flicker of ire sparked toward this old girlfriend. How dare she?

  “Even members of my own band.” Jacques gave a bitter half laugh and shook his head. “A guy I’d played with for years told me I needed to grow up.”

  “What?!” Her temper flared. “I can’t believe he said that. He’ll regret it for the rest of his life.”

  With a blazing look, Jacques’s focus sharpened. “
And then there’s that right there.”

  Her chin drew back. “There’s what?”

  “Not only do you believe in me, but you defend me.” His voice was drenched in awe. “You always take my side… and you always look out for me.” He was quiet for a moment before his mouth quirked. “Even when I don’t need you to.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He gave a low chuckle. “Defending me and looking out for me? You don’t know what I’m talking about?” He shook his head in amused disbelief. “Well, there was that time with Casey North — I’m pretty sure I wrote a song about it…”

  Rainey felt her cheeks heat. Oh, yeah. That.

  “And you got bent out of shape once when we were on the phone, and Kate was riding me…”

  She pressed her lips together, remembering that too.

  “You let me sleep for an hour in a Starbucks’ parking lot when I was supposed to be driving you…”

  “But, that’s not—”

  He interrupted her. “You let me sleep because you thought I needed it. Not even Pal, who’s given me everything, gives me that.” He eyed her sagely, almost daring her to argue. “And let’s not forget when you swiped my credit card and stuffed it down your bra to keep me from paying for a hotel room.”

  The heat in her cheeks burned hotter. He had a point there.

  Above her, his eyes softened. “You look out for me, and even though I’ll never let you pay for my hotel room, it feels good. I haven’t had a lot of that in my life either.” His gaze searched hers for a moment before he bent down and gave her a single kiss. When he pulled back, he raised his brows in question. “Now, are those enough reasons for you to understand why I like you? Because if not, I’ve got more.”

  Her eyes rounded. “There’s more?”

  Jacques nodded. “A lot more. There’s how adorable you look when you think about pancakes and waffles—”

  “Pancakes and waffles are amazing,” she defended.

  He fought his smile. “There’s how mad you get when we play dumb games—”

  “How am I supposed to compete in a music competition against a musician?”

  “There’s how much you love your family, and how you’ll go to the ends of the earth for them…” His expression sobered. “…even for the ones you don’t know… even for the ones who don’t deserve it.”